


No Handbook For Heroes

by frogfarm



Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: F/M, Gen, Writing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-21
Updated: 2013-07-21
Packaged: 2017-12-20 22:47:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/892802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frogfarm/pseuds/frogfarm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John needs to rewrite his own narrative.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Handbook For Heroes

**Author's Note:**

> Missing scene from 1x05, "Queen's Gambit". For [](http://scc-flashfic.livejournal.com/profile)[**scc_flashfic**](http://scc-flashfic.livejournal.com/) challenge: [](http://community.livejournal.com/scc_flashfic/1699.html)_Lessons_

John Connor has always been more comfortable with numbers than words. Numbers are precise and reassuring. English -- the subject, not the language -- is a greater challenge.

"What are you doing here?" He stares at Cameron, standing by his locker.

"Checking up on you. Before my next class." Books shift from left arm to right, perfectly fluid until her motion comes to a stop. "I have calculus."

"Lucky you." He opens the locker. Good old Judgment Day. He really ought to consider new combinations.

"Probability calculus is a separate field. To find --"

"I have to write a story," he interrupts.

"Fiction?"

He nods, distracted, digging for the right notebook.

"Which one?"

He looks up to find her leaning against the locker. In posture if not expression, fully human.

"Huh?"

"Which story are you writing?"

John knows he's going to regret this. "What are you talking about?"

"There are seven basic plots. Man versus nature, man versus man, man versus the environment, man versus machines or technology, man versus the supernatural, man versus god or religion, and man versus self." A microsecond pause, as John stares at her. "An alternate classification: Overcoming the monster, rags to riches, the quest, voyage and return, comedy, tragedy, and rebirth."

"Okay -- you want _me_ to not be a freak? Maybe you should take your own advice." He looks around, finds noone watching. "I know you finished the dictionary, but did you need the encyclopedia too?"

"I have encyclopedias." Cameron's eyebrows contract and descend. John wonders who or what wrote that part of the program, tied this gesture to an increase in CPU load. "I also have human contact."

She looks slightly offended, and John almost smiles. "So where'd you learn all this other stuff?"

"From you."

He's still absorbing it when the bell rings.

"You're going to be late."

The locker creaks as she pushes up, turns and walks away. John marvels at the grace of the machine. His future self has always loomed inevitable, cold and hard as steel, and yet the more Cameron reveals the more he can imagine himself liquid metal. Moving; changing.

He only hopes she's not a Trojan horse.

 

**  



End file.
